The Way Out is Through
by Psychadelico
Summary: Kayaba awed the world of Remnant with his creation of the Nerve Gear and its accompanying launch title ALFheim Online. He promised a game that would let normal people experience what it was like to have the power that those lucky enough to be born with strong Auras could. He promised a game that no one could stop playing. He delivered on both accounts. Multi-Crossover SI
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

The door clicked shut behind them, cutting down the sound of the rain from a dull roar to a faint constant rattle.

"There's a shower through that door, go ahead and get warm," the taller of the room's occupants spoke with a commanding tone that would be more at home in the voice of a grown man than the young boy that produced it. The other occupant, an equally young girl who was soaked to the bone and generously splattered with mud, nodded silently, and moved to do so. The boy closed his eyes and rubbed his face, his thoughts racing. It was a testament to just how distracted he was that it was nearly a minute before he realized his overcoat was still dripping on the floor. With a sigh he reached out with a finger and opened his game menu, flipping through the system with a combination of mental triggers and small gestures. His clothes vanished into a shimmer of pearlescent light and were immediately replaced by sweatpants and a t-shirt. He gave the door to his bathroom another look, hearing the sound of running water, and then he walked to his bed and flopped down on it with a conflicted expression.

He stared sightlessly at the roof of his room, feeling a combination of guilt, fear, and growing responsibility. When the sounds of the shower halted, he purses his lips with a burst of nervous hesitation, but pushed through it and sat up so he was facing the door. The girl quietly came back out, in the same clothes but completely dry, the equipment having returned to optimum condition after passing through her inventory. She made eye contact with the boy, and stopped.

"What's your name?" the boy asked.

"Ruby," she responded after a moment. A weight seemed to settle over his shoulders.

"I meant your in-game name, but I guess either works," he tried smiling, managing a grim up-turn of his mouth. "I'm Cadmus, Chad for short… so I don't mean to be insensitive but I'm guessing you're kind of on your own, given that I found you sitting on the side of the road…" Ruby drew inward and her eyes watered, but she nodded. Chad reached across the distance between them, taking her hand and pulling her to sit down next to him. "Yeah, I'm here by myself too, I could use someone to help watch my back. Think you're up for it?" Ruby almost answered immediately, but hesitated.

"I haven't started combat school yet, I don't think I'll be much help…" she looked downward, avoiding eye contact.

"Well if you were headed for combat school than I need your help even more, my Aura isn't even as strong as normal people," Cadmus' gentle smile grew a little more bitter, "they told me that the strain of activating my aura would probably kill me." Ruby snapped back up to look at him, she seemed disbelieving that someone could be so handicapped and still remain as brave and calm as he was acting. "Besides…" he trailed off, "I'm… not great at making friends, you'd be doing me a favor just by hanging around and cheering me up with your company." Ruby seemed to grow less nervous after hearing this. She nodded slowly, thinking that making sure he didn't feel lonely wasn't too hard of a task for her. There was a pause in the conversation as neither party knew how to continue.

"So you're a Salamander?" Cadmus' eyes flicked up to her crimson-black hair, and back to her face.

Ruby nodded, then after a moment spoke up out loud, "Yes, and… you're an Imp?" she asked, eyeing his own violet locks.

"Yep, purple's my favorite color so there was no other choice for me," he smiled, losing himself in the conversation to forget about his own nervousness. His efforts were rewarded by a small embarrassed smile.

"Me too," Ruby admitted, before she froze, and in a rush of words clarified, "red is my favorite color and I chose Salamander, I mean…" she trailed off as he snickered.

"Yeah, I got what you meant," Cadmus grinned. "So, what level are you?"

"Sixteen," Ruby immediately replied, and then flinched.

"Yeah," Cadmus smile drooped into a subtly bitter expression, "with my Aura I started at level one, but I'm level two now so I'll get there." Ruby nodded, but wasn't convinced, still feeling guilty about being so powerful compared to him and still being overshadowed by his conviction. Before she could say something else, however, she yawned, her hand going to cover up her mouth to unsuccessfully hide the action from the other person in the room. Cadmus sighed, and Ruby again saw him seem to sag under some kind of invisible weight.

"Sorry," she started to say, but he cut her off before she could continue.

"No, it's not you, just… big thoughts about the future and destiny and things," he chuckled without humor. Then, he smiled again, and this time she could see that he was genuinely amused at his own words, "you look like you could use some sleep, if you get any more tired those dark marks under your eyes will stick." Ruby's hands flew to the puffy skin under her eyes before she could stop herself. "Look, none of us have slept well, and if you were out on your lonesome I can guess why you had a harder time than the rest of us," he said with a bit of a commanding tone in his voice, "but if you're gonna have my back then I'm gonna hold you to a pretty high standard, so you're gonna need to take rest when you can, alright?" Ruby looked taken aback for a moment, but saw that he was both serious and joking with my statement. After a moment of hesitation, she seemed to focus, a small bit of determination replacing some of the despair in her gleaming silver eyes. Then, she noticed an important fact.

"Where am I going to sleep?" she glanced down at the only bed in the room.

"Well this is a bed made for adults," Cadmus explained, "so we'll share because I'm twelve and you're tiny." He kept his composure, but almost laughed at the aghast expression that bloomed on her face.

"You want us to sleep in the same bed?" she blurted, then more angrily continued, "and I'm ten, and you're only like, two inches taller than me!"

"Exactly," he nodded sagely, "I'd offer you a set of pajamas too, but I only have the set I'm wearing now and I think that'd be pushing you a little far." Ruby glanced over the t-shirt and sweatpants he was wearing and blushed, her entire head turning scarlet red. "You're adorable, anybody ever tell you that?" Cadmus threw one last tease in before hiking himself up and all the way onto the mattress, before reaching over and grabbing one of the pillows, placing it at the foot of the bed and laying down with his hands laced behind his head. "There, now the only thing that can touch is our feet, and if you're under the covers than you'll be completely safe from cooties."

"I'm not a kid! I know cooties aren't real," she protested, crossing her arms and showing far more liveliness than she had previously.

"Oh, then you have no problems, go to sleep then," Cadmus ended the conversation, rolling over away from her and closing his eyes. After a moment there was an annoyed huff, and then he felt Ruby climb into the bed and slip under the blankets. When he was sure she was in place, his eyes opened again, and his expression grew stressed again.

' _Well, there is the hero I was expecting to vanquish evil and solve everything…'_ his gut clenched in nervousness. ' _And if she's just a little kid, then who's going to fill the role? Kirito?'_ He closed his eyes again, and tried to convince himself that he shouldn't feel guilty for believing that he should wait for a protagonist to show up because he didn't have the strength or the selflessness necessary, and he couldn't possibly do it himself.

Deep down he still felt guilty he wasn't even going to try.

XXXXXXX

Cadmus stared at the wall from his spot on the bed, watching the moonlight travel across his field of vision, kept from sleep by his internal dilemma. Finally, he rolled onto his back, and took a deep breath.

"This isn't a story any more," he spoke softly to himself, "I'm not a hero... but maybe I can try to be a soldier." He closed his eyes and tried to push down his nervousness, trying to find some inner steel to build around the words. Within a few minutes, his breathing deepened as he finally dozed off.

Unbeknownst to him, his words just barely reached the ears of the other person suffering through a sleepless night in the room. She realized that he was just as scared as she was, despite his outward bravado. She realized that she wasn't the only person who used to dream of being a hero. The few days she'd experienced since the opening day of Alfheim Online had devastated her, forcing her to face the dark side of humanity in all of its selfish, cowardly, disloyal glory, and her childhood dreams of re-enacting the fairy tales her mother used to tell her about Huntsmen had been crushed as a result, because along with her faith in others died her faith in herself. But even if she couldn't put on a colorful cape and save the day with a smile on her face, maybe she could still fight for what she thought was right.

Not too long later both the room's occupants were asleep.

XXXXXXX

"Two sandwiches to go please," Cadmus called over the edge of the booth, and he and Ruby stood waiting for the food while attracting the gazes of the other players around them in the market on account of their age. They both fidgeted uncomfortably, Ruby because of the eyes on them, and Cadmus because he was bored. A few moments later, the NPC behind the booth held out the sandwiches, and Cadmus stood on his toes to reach up to take them. After, he handed one to Ruby and started peeling off the wrapping of his own while leading her away from the booth, cutting into a side street to escape from the bustle of the main roads.

"So," Cadmus said between bites, trying to start a conversation. "How's your meta-knowledge?"

"My what?" Ruby responded while still trying to unwrap her own sandwich. Without saying anything, Cadmus reached over and pointed to a spot on the sandwich wrapping. Ruby brightened, and finally got it open.

"That answers my question, I guess," he grinned, "I meant 'how much knowledge about how the game works do you have.' 'Meta' is pretty much a catch-all term for the stuff that has to do with the game that isn't a specific skill or something like that."

"Oh," Ruby nodded.

"Okay why don't we try it this way," he prompted after realizing that Ruby wasn't going to continue, "You tell me everything you know about how the game works like you're trying to teach me and I'll fill in any gaps with what I know."

"Yeah, okay," Ruby said after finishing her next bite. "Uh… so we all have skills."

"Good start"

"Shut up!" she blushed, "we all start with Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Defense, and Magic, and they level up based on the actions we take, and we can learn new skills from quests."

"That," Cadmus confirmed, "and you can also get some of them just from regular combat, I got the Sword Proficiency skill after fighting some beginner mobs."

"Oh." Ruby accepted. "And… we have an Aura level that says how strong we actually are and it works like real Auras do and that's why people who actually have strong auras start at higher levels." She glanced guiltily at Cadmus for a moment, remembering that he was one of the players that had to start at the absolute bottom.

"So how do you raise your Aura level?" Cadmus asked without noticing the look, taking the empty sandwich wrapper from Ruby and placing it in his inventory with an absent extension of his hand. Ruby watched his effortless use of the game's interface with more than a little envy.

"Leveling your other skills, right?" she ventured.

"Pretty much," Cadmus shrugged.

"And… um… there's magic?" Ruby's face scrunched up as she tried to think of what else she knew. "Each race starts with a spell from a different element but you can learn the others once you get your magic skill high enough."

"Leveling your magic skill lets you fly faster and longer too," Cadmus' face softened into a genuine smile. "I do have to say, we may be stuck in a game with the threat of death hanging over our heads, but flying is _awesome_." He turned to smile at her and Ruby smiled back a little, thinking about how much younger he seemed when he was actually happy. Then she slumped.

"I tried flying once," she admitted hesitantly, "I… wasn't very good."

"Really?" Cadmus blinked, taking her by the hand and leading her back onto a main street and through the crowds passing in and out of the gate through the city walls. He spoke up over the people around them while keeping her close enough to hear. "It's… an acquired skill, but it's kind of like the game menu. If you want to get off the training wheels you need to learn the mental controls, and that's pretty much just a matter of practice." He paused for a moment for them to clear the gate so he could pull her back out of the flow of bodies. He let go of her hand, and continued in a normal voice. "Well I think I know what we're doing today." He didn't look at her, but Ruby could see the impish smile on his face all the same. She got a bad feeling.

"What?" she broke the silence, coming to a stop on the edge of the dirt path leading out of the city.

"There's a forest a while down that way," he waved vaguely away from the city, "I'll fly us there, and then I'll throw you out of the trees until you learn to fly. If it works for birds it works for us right?" He openly snickered. Ruby fidgeted for a moment, and then Cadmus finished chuckling and continued. "Actually I'll probably get you to hover first, that's useful in case you accidentally get knocked off a cliff or something, and I can come rescue you as long as you can keep yourself alive."

"Okay," Ruby wilted in relief and nervousness. She squeaked and jumped when Cadmus poked her in the stomach. He gave her the second real smile of the day. "You're adorable." Then, he opened his menu without even using his hands, opening his inventory and equipping a short sword that appeared in a sheath on his left hip in a shimmer of light. "It's the way I learned, and unlike aura levels we all start from the same place. You'll get there."

"Alright," Ruby acquiesced to his assurances. They both stared at each other for a moment.

"Climb on my back I guess," Cadmus turned, violet ethereal wings sprouting from between his shoulder blades. Ruby glanced at the glowing appendages and then stepped forwards, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Cadmus reached up and grabbed her wrists, and then looked up. His wings flicked upwards and they rose upwards slowly. Then, he leaned forward and they started accelerating away from the city. Within moments they were moving faster than either of them could run, and the wind was throwing Cadmus' violet hair back into Ruby's face, making her clamp her eyes and mouth closed. They passed by a handful of farms, and fields full of tall grasses and small monsters. After a couple of minutes of awe the magic of flight passed, and Ruby managed to get bored enough that she broke the silence.

"Why aren't we going any higher?" She wondered.

"I did go higher than this when I was learning. My Aura isn't strong enough to protect me if I fall after I've spent it all on flying," Cadmus responded, voice even. "On an unrelated note healing magic is at the top of the list of things to master, healing potions are expensive as hell."

"Oh," Ruby's arms tightened around him, "sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he sighed. After, Ruby couldn't muster the courage to say anything else, so they finished the trip in silence. Nearly a half-hour after they left the city a green carpet of leaves crested the horizon and moments after that they slowed down and came to a stop in the shade of the huge broadleaf trees.

"This is just like the forests back on Patch…" Ruby said to herself.

"If nothing else," Cadmus spoke up, stretching his arms and legs to get the stiffness of of them after the flight, "Kayaba sure went all in to make the game as realistic as possible. Honestly I don't know how the servers can handle it." He then sighed, still seeming down after the exchange during their flight. "Okay, so this area's pretty safe the monsters are on-aggressive so they won't attack us unless we attack them, and their drops aren't great so we should have the place to ourselves." He pointed to her. "First thing you need to do is learn to summon your wings. I don't really have any advice to give here, just… imagine them coming out."

Ruby's scarlet red wings emerged from her back almost immediately.

"I thought you weren't great at this?" he raised an eyebrow.

"I can do all the commands okay, I just go way too fast," she explained hurriedly, fidgeting with her hands behind her back.

"Right," Cadmus put a hand to his forehead, "huntsman level aura, you probably have the opposite problems as me…" He looked at her, then at the trees around them. "Okay, why don't you stand next to a tree and practice going back and forth between two of them. Try and work on control if you're going too fast." He saw a bit of indignation flicker in her silver eyes. "There's flying mobs that you can only fight if you can fly too, this is a really important thing to learn."

"Fine," she wilted, "what are you going to be doing?"

"Optimized stat grinding," he replied immediately.

"...Right," she watched him walk over to a tree and begin flattening a section of the ground by stomping on it and brushing the leaves and loose dirt away. He dropped down and began doing push-ups. In between reps he looked up at her pointedly, and she realized she'd been watching him instead of working. She closed her eyes, and imagined herself rising upwards.

Cadmus looked up in response to her scream to see her bounce off a branch, go careening uncontrollably through the air, and crash into the ground, sliding on the dirt and detritus for a few feet. He snickered, and went back to his exercise, absently noting that his strength stat had finally leveled up again. Falling into the meditative state that all mmo players use to put up with grinding, he absently continued his work, silently reveling in the fact that he could do push-ups continuously without stopping due to finally having an active aura to counteract his muscle fatigue, or at least an excellent simulation of one. Ruby kept at it for a while, but inevitably grew bored and frustrated. She managed to hover once, just a few inches off the ground, but then tried moving and overshot herself again, hurtling sideways and sliding across the dirt again. Standing up with a pout she huffed, and looked over at Cadmus still working diligently. She internally debated over imitating his perseverance or giving into her impatience.

"Is there a less boring way to do this?" her impatience won, her irritation increasing her boldness. Cadmus stopped, and rolled over so he was sitting.

' _She's ten,'_ he groaned internally, ' _I am not prepared to be a parental figure. Quick, what's the best way to cure a little girl's boredom productively?'_ He asked himself sarcastically.

"Well, it wouldn't help you practice flying, but we could go kill monsters and sell their remains for profit," he proposed.

The answering excited smile he got from her was somehow both fitting for her age and unsettling given the context.

XXXXXXX

' _This is ridiculous,'_ Cadmus stared in dread at the girl as she completely failed to even lay a finger on the starter mobs around her. She flailed the sword in her hand with her elbow straight and in massive arcs that nearly threw her entire body off-balance. She'd hit one of the evil-looking dogs at first and instantly killed it as her Huntsman level Aura gave her tiny arm the brute force to crush through its body with ease, but the others didn't make the mistake of letting her hit them and she wasn't able to fight with enough skill to land a single blow, despite being much, much faster than them.

Of course, with her Aura being as strong as it was, they couldn't hurt her either, resulting in a stalemate filled with Ruby's high-pitched "Hi-yahs" and other battle cries.

' _Qrow, I don't know how the hell you managed to turn this into the little badass that starred in the show, but you have my eternal respect you magnificent bastard.'_

XXXXXXX

That night, they came back to the same apartment and Cadmus put down the money for another night. Once they were inside Ruby rushed into the bathroom to wash off the thick layer of dirt and mud she'd accumulated over the course of many, many tumbles across the ground. Cadmus chuckled and swapped out his day clothes for his sweatpants again, and he sat down on the bed, feeling the exhaustion of trying to handle a ten year old girl with a probably unhealthy love of violence and an aura that nearly negated short-term fatigue.

A few minutes later Ruby emerged and plopped down on the bed in exhaustion, wearing her own newly-purchased sweatpants and t-shirt, colored in her favorite combo of red and black. After a minute, she lifted her head and looked over at Cadmus, who was laying with his hands behind his head and his eyes closed.

"Hey," she broke the silence. He cracked an eye open and looked at her. "Thanks," she managed. He gave her the third genuine smile she'd seen him make.

"You're welcome," he answered, closing his eyes again and seeming a little less stressed than before.

"Um," she considered how to ask the question she'd been pondering all day, and then finally asked with her usual level of tact, "why do you seem so old?" Both of Cadmus eyes flew open and his gaze snapped to meet hers, genuine shock on his face.

"Shit you're observant for your age," he mumbled almost to quietly for her to hear. He seemed to think over the question for a moment.

"Actually, that's a secret I'll probably only tell my wife, if I ever get one," he told her, leaning back.

"... then if I marry you you'll tell me?" she asked. Cadmus' face twitched.

"Go to sleep," he managed, "we can have this conversation again in… I dunno, a decade."

Ruby frowned, and stuck her tongue out at him, taking advantage of his eyes being closed. After, she crossed her arms and sat back, laying down on the bed forcefully with a quiet annoyed growl. She couldn't stay angry, however, and as she laid there, she smiled softly, feeling content and protected like she hadn't since she stopped sleeping cuddled with her sister. That night it wasn't long before they both were asleep.

XXXXXXX

 **Well, I've kinda been having writers block on my other story... for like a year... and in the meantime this was a plot bunny that evolved into a fully developed plot during that same year. I don't plan on stopping my other story but I'm not really happy with the way it was turning out. I wanted something a bit more mature and gritty than it was becoming, so I guess it's kind of taking the back burner for now. On the other hand this story is much, much more light hearted and hopefully is something that will be easier to write without being so... over the top without the necessary build up. Of course my brain doesn't like to come up with small ideas so this is probably going to be really really long, probably somewhere over 500k words, and I want to have a sequel come after that. Yay for unrestrained ambition. This is also going to be a multi-crossover. I don't plan on spoiling what else is going to show up because I kind of like pulling stuff out of the blue. Just saying, if you recognize a name or a place then it's probably what you think it is.**

 **So there's a lot of people that won't read stories the moment they realize that SAO is involved because they hate it that much. On one hand I did enjoy SAO, mostly the actual SAO arc anyway, but on the other hand I understand where they're coming from. SAO had a stereotypical anime plotline type of deal, I don't know how else to say it, and while that can be enjoyable, that's not what I'm going for here. So while I'm using the whole "stuck in a game" plot structure don't expect things to happen exactly like they did in canon SAO, which honestly should be good news whether you liked SAO or not. On top of that, SAO itself, and the other games from the verse would never have even gotten the funding to reach production, they're interesting from a narrative perspective, but if you actually look at them as MMO games they are completely broken and would be abandoned by players immediately. Investors would know this, and because everybody but Kayaba Akihiko thought that they would be** ** _regular MMOs_** **then they simply wouldn't get the funding because game producers would never waste their money developing games they** ** _know_** **no one would every play. If you want to hear a really good analysis about this, check out the youtube link below. Anyways, SAO and ALFheim from the perspective of an actual MMO addict are completely unplayable so the version that I'm using in my story works completely differently. So please don't comment "but that's not how the game works!"**

 **And I think that's it for this author's note, please leave any comments in a review, I can use all the feedback I can.**


	2. Floor 1: 1

**Chapter 1**

"Finally," the little salamander groaned as the pair landed in front of the gate.

"Oh, shut up," the imp gave her a little shove, and then snarked at her "like it was really all that bad, you even got plenty of time to practice flying!"

"Yeah, plenty of time to practice while waiting for you to take a break!" she shot back.

"Big words for someone still trying to learn to _turn_ ," he responded.

"... you suck," she complained.

"Can…" the player standing guard in front of the gate tried, "can I help you?" The two kids turned and looked at him in surprise.

"You're not an NPC?" the boy gaped. The guard sighed.

"Easy repeatable quest," he shrugged. The two kids nodded sagely.

"So can we pass or is there some kind of fee?" the boy inquired.

"Actually," the guard looked at them, "there's a fee for everyone that's not a Salamander, but if you're in a party with one the fee is waived for you." He looked pointedly at the girl. The kids smiled.

"Thanks man," the boy opened his menu, and sent the guard a friend request, "we've been grinding around the base of Yggdrasil, if you want to know anything about there hit me up."

"Alright," the guard grinned patronisingly. The kids saw his expression and scowled.

"Okay, fuck you then," the boy cursed at him, and then walked past, the girl following. She shot a middle finger at him just before she slipped through the gate to the capital of the Salamanders' territory and vanished from view. The guard stared where the innocent-looking girl had vanished, wondering who could've corrupted two little kids so badly.

On the other side, the girl and boy eyed the town appreciatively, enjoying the change of theme from the wooden elfin-style territory at the base of Yggdrasil in the center of the map to the sand, stone, and cement structures used in the desert zone in the south. The NPCs were all Salamanders too, instead of the mix of races present in the neutral central zone. They drew a few curious glances on account of their age and size, but in the month the game had been out the players had grown used to seeing young kids forced to take care of themselves.

Ruby looked over everything with wide eyes, never having seen anything like it before. Cadmus appreciated the sights as well, but wasn't so obvious about it. He took Ruby's hand absently in a motion that seemed habitual and Ruby didn't even seem to notice. They ducked through the crowds, and found their first priority: an NPC-managed inn. Cadmus pushed open the door, Ruby pulling her hand back without actively thinking about it and standing on her toes to look over his shoulder and see what things were like inside.

The building had wooden internal walls, and the room they'd entered was a lobby with a handful of tables with a few players having a small breakfast at them. The NPC owner was clearly marked by his work apron and his lack of combat equipment, compared to the armed and ready players making use of the tables and chatting. Cadmus retrieved a small gold piece from his inventory with a mindless movement of his left hand, as then he flicked it at the NPC, interrupting its greeting dialogue. It told them that they had paid for three nights, and then Cadmus and Ruby started tuning out the rest of the response.

"So, food or sleep first?" Cadmus raised an eyebrow at his companion.

"Food," Ruby responded with a yawn, making Cadmus chuckle. They turned and made their way back across the room, sidestepping chairs and waitresses as they went.

Back outside, they made their way down the street, exploring the new city and browsing what was on display in the many shops and roadside booths along the roads. Without either of them noticing, Cadmus reached out and took Ruby's hand so they didn't get separated, even though the streets weren't really crowded enough to warrant it. Cadmus started smelling food, and stepped towards the source, but noticed that Ruby was less than enthusiastic about following. He turned his head back, and saw Ruby looking back over her shoulder at a specific shop filled with gleaming blades. He laughed. Ruby turned to him and scowled, her face blushing red. He glanced at the store and back, and shrugged.

"I thought we were going to get food first?" He teased. However Ruby shamelessly repeated words that he'd said to her on one of their first days out grinding.

"You might run out of potions or mana, but your weapon will always be in your hands and only needs effort to use. Your weapon is the most important item you will ever have," she enunciated impishly. Cadmus laughed.

"I am such a bad influence on you," he shook his head. "Go on, I'll get the map data. Remember to eat something before heading back to the hotel." Ruby nodded excitedly and shot off towards the weapon shop trailing rose petals. Cadmus watched her vanish into the shop with a fond look, before turning and heading further into the city, his face falling back into an impassive stare. He walked past the shops and hotels placed near the city gates for players intending on making a quick stop in the city, and then past the housing district where permanent homes could be purchased. He slowed down when he started seeing management buildings and empty guild halls and other signs of having reached the center of the city. The crowds had thickened, and despite the fact that most of the game's players were still cowering in the central zone, players filled the streets, passing to and from player-run markets, shared barracks, and quest NPCs.

The atmosphere reflected the mental state of the playerbase. Most people were acting cheerful and friendly, but off in the distance there were faint sounds of crying from the pillar recording all the names of the deceased players, and there were a few players sitting and lying just barely in sight on the edges of the street and in alleys with a blank stare in their eyes. Cadmus ignored everyone else, forcing his way through the bustle until he reached a player-owned tavern with a magnifying glass carved on the sign above the door. He walked across the threshold, and the sounds of commerce and muffled grief were mostly silenced. Inside, players were exchanging information at the various tables, and the guild that had bought the building had attendants stationed for purchasing information in various places. His entrance drew a few quick looks, and then nearly all of them returned to their business. A few people continued to stare at him, but they were those who still hadn't come to terms with the game and still found it jarring to see someone so young acting without supervision.

Cadmus skipped over the tables and walked up to the attendant nearest to the door. It was a young girl only a few years older than him with the red hair given to all the players that chose the Salamander race. She looked at him, and immediately looked up and behind him, trying to find the adult that he was walking with. When she saw that he was alone, she grimaced.

"How can I help you?" she asked, giving him a decent effort at a fake smile.

"Just the map data for the mob fields nearby the city," Cadmus told her, opening a data exchange window with a thought.

"That will be 1000 col," the girl told him, opening an exchange window of her own, taking a noticeably longer time to do so by using her hand to navigate the system physically. Cadmus paused, and then sighed, typing in the digits into his window. The girl entered her side of the bargain, and they both pressed _confirm_. Afterwards, Cadmus opened his map and briefly looked over the new additions. Satisfied he got everything he paid for, he gave the girl a nod and turned, his window closing automatically as he stopped paying attention to it. The girl watched him leave, her plastered smile falling back into a grimace. She sighed, and went back to waiting for her next customer.

As Cadmus headed away from the information exchange he studied the newly unlocked maps, as well as the pictures of the monsters that spawned in the zones near the city. He mentally categorized them according to which were best for him and Ruby to grind at, thinking over things like their ability to fly making it easier to go between mobs' spawn points and whether or not the zone would be crowded by other players. It didn't take him long, and he mentally noted the top three to look into the following morning, and then he closed his menu and yawned.

He strode back towards the inn he had purchased a room in, while paying much more attention to the shops along the road than he had on the way into the city. He bought himself a sandwich at a stall on his way back to his and Ruby's room, and tossed the empty wrapper into the trash as he passed through the bar on the first floor. He ignored the NPC owner and headed up the stairs and past the doors along the hallway. When a green indicator appeared in front of one of the doors, he stepped up to it and pushed through, emerging into the small, single-bed room with a little nightstand and chair, and a window on the wall opposite the door without glass. Outside, he could see the red-blue sky caused by the setting sun, and a slight breeze came through the open window.

Without pausing, he walked across the room and closed the window's shutters, not even giving the sky a second glance. After that, he opened his party chat and mentally dictated a message.

 _I'm back at the hotel room, I'll be practicing my magic. How long are you planning on staying out?_

He hit send mentally with the same ease he displayed with the rest of the interface and then sat down on the bed. He pulled a wooden cup out of his inventory and tossed it dismissively on the ground in front of him. After a moment, he mumbled two words and his aura flared amethyst purple. His shadow warped, stretching unnaturally across the floor until it was beneath the cup, and started glowing faintly purple. Tiny chains emerged from the darkness and wrapped around the cup, tightly binding it to the ground. After a few minutes of continuous concentration and effort his attention was wrenched from maintaining the magic by the chime of an incoming message. He looked at the icon floating off to the side of his body, and it opened, showing a return message from his other party member.

 _I'm still arguing with someone over whether or not pole weapons have value when we have magic. Be back before sundown, I promise._

He smiled at the message, able to clearly see in his head a short red-haired girl yelling passionately at some grown man because he made some comment about weapons. Afterwards, he went back to practicing his magic. After several minutes of practicing the same Bind spell, he shifted to the other basic-level magic of the Darkness element, Poison Dart. With two words a thin needle of shadow lanced from his shadow, flew through the air, and hit the wooden cup, piercing in half an inch and halting. A malicious purple mist wafted off the needle. After a brief moment, the needle vanished, leaving behind a small mark in the wood just like many more that were already there. Several dozen practice casts later, he was again interrupted by Ruby opening the door and storming in. He looked up at her and smiled, seeing that her expression was mostly normal but the skin around her eyes and nose was scrunched up enough to show that she was feeling annoyed. The four-foot salamander closed the door behind her hard enough for it to clack loudly against the frame, and jumped onto the bed, bouncing a few times from her weight compressing the springs and making Cadmus bouncy slightly himself.

"So your trip went well?"

"I got to see the difference between Yggdrasil weapons and Salamander ones," she shrugged and laid back, kicking her legs out from the bed absently. "I think we'll get ones we'll like a lot easier here, I guess Salamanders like bigger and heavier weapons to take advantage of their initial Strength boost."

"That's good to hear," Cadmus commented, going back to practicing his magic.

"I also made sure to find a potion shop and restock," Ruby blinked as she remembered. She opened a trade menu and after Cadmus accepted she sent him a few dozen restoratives.

"Thanks," he responded as he accepted the trade after finishing his spell's chant. After a moment, Ruby sat up and watched as Cadmus cast his basic-level spells repeatedly and without stopping.

"You know that's still kind of cool to watch," Ruby commented.

"What, magic?" Cadmus raised an eyebrow.

"No," she shook her head, "I mean a week ago you would've needed a break, but now you can generate an aura strong enough to just keep casting non-stop." She paused. "Because people's Auras can't get stronger like that in the real world, I mean."

"Yeah, it's pretty cool on this end too," he grinned, "I told you I've always liked playing casters in games, so finally being able to handle using magic like this is pretty satisfying." He went back to casting for a moment, then continued before Ruby could say anything else. "Of course it's not like these would be any use in an actual fight, I'm not putting much power into them…" Ruby shrugged, and flopped back down on her back.

"Have you picked out a mob zone for us for tomorrow?" she asked after a few moments.

"I've got three picked out that need a tiebreaker opinion," Cadmus absently transferred his new map data to Ruby and placed three party waypoints for her to look at. He switched to using three words in his chants and his spells started producing two needles per cast. However, unlike before, each cast caused him noticeable strain, and his jaw clenched from the effort. Ruby laid next to him mostly motionless for a little bit, looking over the maps. Then, she looked over at Cadmus still practicing and frowned uncomfortably. She clenched her eyes, and frowned, and then sat forward and held out her hands in front of her. She mumbled three words and a ball of golden-red flames bloomed between her cupped palms. Just like Cadmus had earlier, she held the spell continuously, training her ability to sustain her spells. Because she was so focused, she didn't catch the subtle proud smile Cadmus got at seeing her start to practice instead of slacking off.

 _Thata girl_

XXXXXXX

"I'm thinking we should go to the zone with the Centipede swarms. The mobs aren't as strong, but the numbers should mean we get as much exp, and because they're non-flyers we can bail pretty easily if we start getting overwhelmed," Ruby told Cadmus as she stretched the sleep out of her arms. She was forced to lower them and squeeze past another person heading through the door into the inn, but went back to stretching after she and Cadmus made it into the street.

"Sounds like a plan," Cadmus managed through a yawn. As the two of them made their way towards the city gate they both kept fairly quiet and did their best to focus on making sure their Aura barrier was as strong as possible. As they neared the massive stone archway that marked the threshold of the city they slowly stopped paying attention to keeping their Aura barrier active, but there was still a barely-visible tint of color around their outlines to betray that they had turned protecting themselves with Aura into an instinct. There was a line to enter the city to pay the fine to enter, and a line for all the people trying to squeeze through the other side of the gate who were heading out. Virtually everyone was primarily dressed in various shades of red, so Cadmus' black and purple gear stood out, but didn't draw any more eyes than his age.

Continuing their preparations, Cadmus and Ruby equipped their combat gear. The two of them swapped their clothes for silk and leather armor dyed in the customary colors of their race. Both sets of equipment were obviously light armor, and despite being equipment and thus having some aesthetic design, the equipment was obviously built for effect rather than appearance. They had cloth pants and shirts with leather breastplates, armguards, and greaves. After their armor they equipped their weapons, and in perfect sync a pulse of light on their backs turned into weapon harnesses and the implements they held. Cadmus' was a longsword made for someone much bigger than him made of a dark grey metal with dark purple components forming the hilt. Ruby had the gleaming silver blade of her polearm over one shoulder and the bottom of the handle poked out sideways from her opposite hip. Neither of the tiny party members saw the people around them make interesting faces at how they did their little routine at the same time. Gamers were tolerant of the strange and confusing by necessity, however, so after a few seconds Cadmus and Ruby's little display was ignored and forgotten.

Ruby opened her map and made a party waypoint that then appeared both on her map and off in the distance in their normal vision. Cadmus rolled his shoulders and tied a white and black bandana around his head to keep his spiky purple hair from falling into his eyes. They waited in line while fidgeting impatiently. Cadmus crossed his arms and tapped his fingers against his armguard. Ruby adjusted her polearm on her back and tapped her toes on the ground. When they finally got through the gate, both of them walked out into the open with much more pep in their step than strictly necessary. They were about to sprout their wings and take off towards the waypoint in the distance, when they were approached by another Salamander a few years older than them.

"Hey, uh, excuse me?" the newcomer hesitantly raised his hand, looked down towards them with a complicated expression on his face. Ruby and Cadmus looked at him blankly.

"Yes..." Cadmus prompted.

"Umm…" he smiled embarrassedly, "So, I was supposed to go grinding with a group of friends today, but they all got a quest and want to work on it and I got left out, so if it's alright could I grind with you?" The whole story came out all at once and he sounded apologetic as he asked to go with them.

"You're not bothered by how old we are?" Ruby wondered.

"Yeah, I'm still a pretty low level too," he gave the kids a wry smile.

"...that's not what I asked…" Ruby mumbled irritably and Cadmus snorted.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Cadmus shrugged, sending a party invitation without even lifting a finger. The newcomer had to take a moment to realize that the invite was already in front of him. In contrast to Cadmus nonchalant ease, he had to reach out and tap the Accept option on the invite. An Aura meter faded into existence off to the side of the newcomer's vision with Cadmus and Ruby's names next to them to differentiate between the meters. Ruby and Cadmus' UI didn't change, but that was because they didn't use the health bar-style display system, preferring to use their own senses to manage their own Aura, and trusting that the other would ask if they needed a momentary breather.

"Scarlett and… Ddraig? Is that how that's pronounced?" he asked them.

"Yeah, that's right," Cadmus nodded, "and you're... EndlessGrudge?" Cadmus raised an eye as he read the name off the indicator on his own interface. Grudge shrugged.

"It was supposed to be an inside joke, my friends and I were all supposed to have evil nicknames and form a PvP guild, but after opening day… and the whole, 'die in here, die for real' thing…" Grudge explained.

"Gotcha," Cadmus nodded with the same uncaring ease that he approached everything else. "We're planning on heading to the Canyons north-east that have the Ashen Centipedes, are you ready to go?"

"You're going there?" Grudge exclaimed, then gulped. "Uh, yeah, I guess, I'm level eighteen and the mobs there are twenty, we'll just have to be careful to only fight them one or two at a time, Centipedes swarm easily." Ruby and Cadmus stared at him for a second.

"Right," Cadmus drawled, "I meant 'do you have enough potions and antidotes.'" He sighed, rubbing his face with his hands, "Let's just go." He turned towards the marker off in the distance and four wings made of amethyst light flared from between his shoulder blades. He lifted off the ground and accelerated towards the horizon, Ruby following with an expression of intense concentration on her face until she leveled out at a few stories above the ground. Grudge stared for a moment.

"Wait-" He fumbled with the menu and manually controlled his flight with a handheld joystick, "wait for me!" he trailed after them.

They kept that formation the entire time it took them to journey over the barren desert and rock formations between them and their destination. Below them, they could occasionally see some players who were still at the bottom levels training against started mobs, and the few people who'd decided to camp in the wilds instead of sleep in the city. Once, they passed over a camp patrolled by monsters and they could see small splatters of red showing the consequences of camping outside the city and letting your guard down. Cadmus and Ruby grimaced in sympathy, while when Grudge looked down at the sight, he grimaced uncomfortably but still sighed somewhat condescendingly.

It wasn't the first time Cadmus and Ruby had run into the evidence of a player's death, but they couldn't do anything like a funeral because at the moment of death a player's body would shatter into pixels that would fade out of existence, leaving nothing but the blood they'd shed up till then behind as evidence of that they'd lived.

The whole party perked up and became more attentive as they approached the waypoint. Below them was a series of rocks rising out of the desert like a huge scab on the world. Huge crevasses slashed across the formation, shaped like stress fractures and river-carved canyons. The area looked as inhospitable as the rest of the area, save for the shade offered by the crevasses and the lower temperature that implied. The three of them landed at the end of one, their wings vanishing as they passed into the shade and their feet touched down on the sand and silt forming the bottom of the crevasse they'd chosen. Grudge sighed in relief as he left the desert sunlight, but neither Cadmus nor Ruby reacted because their passive Aura barriers protected them from any discomfort due to the heat. They were surprised, however, by the sound of Grudge panting from effort. They looked over and saw him red-faced with effort.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize," Ruby gasped, "I've got a speed Semblance and Ddraig's an Imp, I should've known you weren't used to flying that fast."

"It's… fine," Grudge chuckled, waving her off as he struggled to get his breath under control. After a moment, Ruby and Cadmus shrugged together and turned away from him and headed into the canyon. Grudge looked at them with disbelief, and then suspicion. Regardless, he followed after them, breathing normally but still mostly flushed from exertion.

As they got farther in, the floor dropped farther, and within a matter of minutes the sides of the canyon stretched upwards on both sides high enough to make the part of the sky they could see seem like a small sliver in the distance. Grudge recovered from flying so far, and he drew his sword and started walking with it in his hand. Ruby eyed him for a bit, and then looked back towards where they were going. Grudge's grip around his sword tightened as small holes in the walls started to show up, interspersed randomly. Once they were a fairly constant feature of the walls the party started to hear faint clicking noises from them. Then, when Ruby could hear the noise clearly she stopped, Cadmus following suit immediately and Grudge doing the same after a moment.

"So, should I lure some?" she asked. Cadmus eyed the distance between the walls, and nodded.

"Yeah, we've got… twenty feet between the walls?" he made a so-so gesture with his hand. "Are you sure you've got enough room for your polearm?"

"I'm sure," she nodded, pulling her weapon from its sheath. Cadmus did the same. The size of their weapons was much more apparent when they were in their hands. Cadmus' sword was by itself longer than his legs, and Ruby pulled the second half of her polearm's handle from her harness after the main segment and slotted the pieces together, forming a weapon taller than her entire body. Grudge at that moment caught up to the conversation.

"Wait, wait, you're gonna call them here?" his eyebrows lifted away from his eyes. Ruby raised a single eyebrow in response, giving him a strange look.

"Of course, why would I waste time waiting for them to find us?" she responded, and raised a hand and with a quick two-word chant that she seemed to blur through, a small fireball shot from her hand and flew down one of the small offshoot tunnels. After a few moments, during which Grudge stood with his jaw hanging by his collarbone, the sound of a distant puff of expanding flame was carried to them by that same tunnel. Grudge visibly sagged, and then opened his menu and pulled out his manual flight controller. He was about to speak up, when giant brown and crimson centipede heads poked out of every tunnel around them. Grudge shot upwards as the Centipedes lunged for all three of them. He screamed as one nearly clamped its foot-long mandibles around his legs. Other centipedes closed on Cadmus and Ruby, but they were already moving.

Ruby swung her polearm in a wide arc, bending her knees and bracing herself strongly against the ground. Meanwhile, Cadmus stepped into the area after her swing where he wouldn't interfere with her and with a single quick breath chanted a full spell and threw a handful of needles in the other direction. The polearm was a weapon used for nothing but heavy warfare, and the long handle gave it's axe-blade incredible leverage for devastating blows. With Ruby's affinity for Strength as a Salamander and her naturally strong Aura her weapon cleaved through the oncoming wave of monsters in one swing, splitting the heads of the centipedes in two. On the other side of the fight, Cadmus' needles pierced the eyes of the centipedes as they approached, and a vein-like pattern of malignant purple spidered outward from them.

Cadmus' mouth twitched upwards into a smile as he lunged back at the Centipedes and with the supernatural dexterity his Aura gave him and the Imp species' affinity for Agility he dived into the oncoming wave of monsters, heading off their advance with quick, efficient slashes that removed the centipede's mandibles or cut their heads in half. As Ruby completed her swing, she turned to face the other direction, the motion placing her polearm behind her where she could immediately swing it from for her next attack. As she did, Cadmus jumped backwards, flipping over her and coming out of his acrobatics behind and above her facing towards the second wave of monsters coming over the remains of the first. As he came around he finished his spell chant and the centipedes in front of him were held down in place by black etherial chains.

Ruby finished her own spell chant and golden-red flames flared into life on the blade of her polearm. Cadmus' wings erupted into existence from his back, carrying him into the horde so he could kill off the targets of his crowd control spell before it started becoming a waste of stamina. Ruby launched herself forward, bringing her flaming polearm around to attack her own second wave. Above them Grudge stared in shock and muttered a few choice expletives.

Several minutes later the three of them were walking further into the ravine and Cadmus and Ruby were still looking over the windows recounting their rewards for the combat encounter.

"... not a bad amount of exp for that much time," Ruby commented. "I don't know how much the drops are worth though…"

"Well, 'carapace' and 'poison mandible' are probably armor and weapon materials, they should be worth at least a little," Cadmus mused. "And we got a decent number because there are so many mobs pulled at once, if we get enough of them they'll sell for a lot no matter how worthless each piece is."

"True," Ruby bobbed her head side-to-side in admission. Behind them Grudge stayed quiet, eyeing the two "children."

"So," Cadmus spoke up after a period of silence. "I get that you didn't want to be surrounded, but why didn't you attack with magic? You have attack magic as a Salamander, right Grudge?" He cast a half-lidded gaze over his shoulder back at the newcomer to their party.

"Oh," Grudge flinched, "Yeah... uh… I didn't want to waste all my Aura on the first fight."

"That's not how Aura works," Ruby responded before anybody could say anything else, rambling on at a fast pace. "You don't lose it over time, you generate a steady amount and you can choose to allocate it to defense or attack… oh, wait," she trailed off, and spun to look Grudge in the eye, "You're just an asshole!"

"And you're a privileged little shit," Grudge scowled, glaring at them.

"I didn't have a Huntsman Aura, I started at level one," Cadmus glared back.

"Of course you did," Grudge rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, "and I noticed you didn't say anything about her." Cadmus groaned in resignation.

"Look, if you don't want to be in a party with a Huntsman kid, then just leave and stop ruining both of our days?" Cadmus sighed. After a moment Grudge opened his menu, and after a few seconds more his name left the list of party members displayed in Ruby and Cadmus' vision. Without another word, he slowly managed to take his flight controller out of his menu and fly upwards out of the canyon. Cadmus sighed, and moved to start heading back into the mob zone when he saw Ruby looking guiltily after where Grudge had disappeared. He walked over and put his hand on her shoulder. She started, and made eye contact.

"I'm fine," she smiled slightly, and moved away from his hand and deeper into the canyon.

"It's not your fault that your Aura started stronger than his, it just happened that way," Cadmus assured her.

"I know!" she whined, "you don't have to say that every time!" She wilted down slightly. "... He just seemed nice, you know?"

"I know what you mean," he frowned as he passed Ruby, angry that someone else had made her feel guilty for being born with talent.

They worked their way across the canyon, repeating the process of having Ruby provoke the centipedes and then the two of them fighting together to handle the resulting swarm, and then moving further on. When they finished the first canyon they flew up out of it and moved to a new one. Like a well-oiled machine the two of them systematically slaughtered the monsters infesting the area. Ruby gradually showed the strain of the exertion, and started frowning, but Cadmus instead grew even more focused, keeping his calm expression in spite of his sweat and fatigue. Ruby paid attention to him as the sunlight traveled down the walls of the canyons, and pursed her lips as his eyes slowly widened and took on a hungry, euphoric daze the more they fought. When the sunlight was about to shine directly down on them she stopped him after they looked over the most recent combat resolution pop-up and mentioned lunch.

Cadmus looked at her, slowly processing what she'd said, and visibly pulled himself together. He seemed to crash, the exhaustion hitting him all at once. He nodded in agreement, and they sat down against one of the walls. They each took a leg of meat and an apple out of their inventory and dug in.

"So…" Ruby tried, "we both like rock music, we both hate parties, and you like brownies more than cookies." She shot him a half-glare at the blasphemy against cookies. "What now?"

"Books I guess," Cadmus offered with his cheeks full of apple. "I actually don't really like non-fiction that much. Once you've had enough history classes reading about real life starts to get boring. On the other hand I could read fantasy and science fiction forever."

"I like stories," Ruby agreed. "Though I don't read very often, I usually…" she stopped. Slowly, her hands lowered to her lap, and Cadmus stopped eating when he saw. "My mom used to read to me a lot. I… haven't read as much recently."

"..." Cadmus silently squeezed her shoulder, lips tight with sympathy.

"Well I'll have to share the ones I liked when we get out," he said cheerfully, sitting back against the wall. Ruby frowned in annoyance at Cadmus' flippance, but didn't say anything.

"So… you… lost your mom?" Cadmus ventured in a desperate attempt to continue the conversation. Ruby tensed, and then relaxed, leaning her head on his shoulder and nearly dropping her forgotten meal.

"She went on a mission a few years ago, and never came back," Ruby explained with fragile calm. "My dad is a Huntsman too, but he hasn't gone on any missions out of the kingdom since, because he wants to be home for me and my sister. It's great to have him, but he's never really been the same since my mom… since…" she stopped talking, curling her chin towards her chest and beginning to tear up. Cadmus pursed his mouth guiltily.

"I'm not great at the whole 'comforting people' thing, I'm way too blunt as you well know," Cadmus complained, successfully eliciting an amused huff from the girl. "She sounds like a wonderful person." He sighed deeply. "My parents… we never really saw eye-to-eye. They're civilians and they wanted me to learn the family cooking recipes and take over their shop when I grew up. I was always too smart and too focused on becoming a huntsman, so we never really had the chance to have a bond like that." He shifted, moving his arm around Ruby's back to pull her into a firm one-handed hug. "I don't really know how to feel about them to be honest. They did their best to care for me, but I was never the kid they wanted. I don't really feel motivated to see them again and I don't know if that makes me a terrible person…" Ruby shifted over and hugged him back, but didn't say anything, still choked up with tears.

"Finish your lunch," Cadmus told her after a moment, pulling away and going back to his meat. Ruby did the same with a deep breath, wiping her tears on her sleeve. They didn't talk after that, Ruby was too emotional and Cadmus was too worried about saying something that would make her cry again. When he finished his meat, Cadmus threw the bone back into his inventory as well as the apple core. Ruby did the same a few seconds later, and they stood back up and wordlessly went back to grinding.

They were still getting comfortable fighting together, but they had a rhythm well established. Ruby's Aura was still stronger than Cadmus', and Salamanders had more physical power, so she served as the vanguard. Coupled with her polearm and her melee-boosting magic she could face up against all the mobs they ever fought and match them in raw physical power. Cadmus on the other hand had much more mobility in tight spaces because of his higher affinity with agility and dexterity, along with his smaller weapon, so while Ruby charged in and crushed through the opposition Cadmus would swoop in and clean up the few monsters outside of her reach and made sure that she didn't get attacked from behind while she charged forwards. It made for an effective combination.

Cadmus started falling into another trance as they fought, but came out of it when he realized that Ruby had stopped in place and was looking over her battle resolution window with a focused expression. He leaned over, and though he couldn't read it he could see that she had an extra drop from the fight.

"What'd you get?" Cadmus inquired, taking the opportunity to open his equipment menu and check on the durability of his gear. It took Ruby a second to respond.

"I think it's a skill book," she finally ventured, exchanging her battle resolution window for her inventory screen to take a better look at the item.

"That's… really valuable if it is. I didn't even know we had those in this game." Cadmus' mouth twitched up into a grin of honest fascination. "This might even be the first one to drop ever. So are you going to use it or sell it?"

"Um…" Ruby hesitated. "Actually, it says… Quest Item." Cadmus blinked, and was about to ask for elaboration, but couldn't get anything out before he was interrupted.

Cadmus and Ruby were both caught off guard by a pair of walls bursting out from the ground on both sides of the canyon, cutting off their path both ways. It wouldn't have blocked their way out, given that they could fly, but as they finished off the few remaining centipedes, a handful of people landed on the lip of the new arena-like zone, weapons at the ready. When Ruby finished off the last of the mobs with a flaming cleave, the two of them looked warily up at the ambushers. There were eight of them. Each was a different in-game race, and with eight members they were only missing an Undine out of the full set.

"Top of the morning to yeah," Cadmus blustered sarcastically, "how might we help you this fine afternoon." Ruby gave him an incredulous look out of the corner of her eye. As Cadmus wondered about his ability to understand Ruby's facial expressions the Salamander of the group spoke up.

"You can give us all of your money and equipment. I'm sure it didn't take you Huntsman kids too much effort to get it so it wouldn't hurt to share with us commoners, right?" EndlessGrudge responded with equal sarcasm but with much more malice in his tone. Ruby visibly tensed, not frowning but her face tightened with hurt.

"... this is kind of pathetic, you know that right? You're ganging up on a couple of kids to extort low-level equipment from them," Cadmus pointed out, staying relaxed, but keeping his off-hand ready to throw out a spell at the slightest sign of attack.

"Shut up and give us the items or we'll force you into fighting back and becoming orange players," the Gnome player commanded before EndlessGrudge could spit back a retort, his deep voice matching his massive frame.

Cadmus didn't say anything, just stared at them for a moment. Then, he sighed loudly, and elbowed Ruby. She glanced at him, and Cadmus jerked his chin upward twice. The players took it as a threat, and started chanting their spells, but instead of attacking, Ruby merely looked straight up, and combined her normal flight speed with her Semblance. The little salamander shot off the ground so suddenly that Cadmus' clothes got blown everywhere from the air that she shoved out of her way. She was up and gone out of the canyon before anyone could even react, leaving a long trail of rose petals behind her.

The Cait Sith of the group cursed, and switched from starting to cast a spell to commanding his beast familiar to find Ruby. Meanwhile, the other players advanced on Cadmus, their spell chants finished but holding the spells at the ready instead of immediately casting. Cadmus looked at the group with a resigned but annoyed expression. Without another word, he looked up after Ruby, and vanished. He collapsed into himself, losing color and turning completely purple-black before collapsing to a single point at his heart, and then he was gone.

Up in the air, Ruby floated, waiting. Cadmus reappeared in a reversion of his disappearance. He immediately collapsed, and Ruby darted forward, reaching her arms under his shoulders and holding him up. Cadmus gasped as his body flushed with a cold sweat. He breathed heavily as his Aura sputtered and faded. Ruby carried him away from the canyons, ignoring the tiny dots of the other players rising up and giving chase. Within a matter of seconds she'd outpaced them at her full speed and completely left them behind. Cadmus recovered in those few dozen seconds, and he tugged at Ruby's hand to let her know. She released him, and he caught himself on his own wings. Together, they hovered for a moment.

"What now? Cadmus prompted, "I don't think I feel like going back to grinding after that…" he trailed off as Ruby pulled the quest item back out of her inventory. "Right," he huffed self-deprecatingly. Ruby poked at the item and read through the menus, and after a moment a quest window opened in front of both of them.

"Look for the owner of the martial arts text? Rewards unspecified?" Ruby read out loud.

"That's about a day's worth of exp though, I think that could be worth it," Cadmus reasoned.

"But is it worth a skill book?"

"I mean, do you want to switch to martial arts, I thought you wanted to use weapons?"

"I do! But martial arts could help when mobs get inside my reach. Between us I thought you would've wanted it more."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I absolutely want it, but a days' worth of exp plus more rewards could be nice…"

"Maybe we could just try completing the quest, and if it takes too long we can just use the skill book?"

"Alright," Cadmus shrugged, "that works for me." They both looked back suddenly to see a handful of dots catching up with them, led by a hawk that was flying straight towards the two. They simply turned towards the city, and flew off, leaving the other players in the dust again. Ruby was quiet during the flight back, like she was every time she was forced to see selfishness and jealousy in others.

While flying back to the city Ruby busied herself reading the martial arts scroll, while Cadmus kept them flying in the right direction and organized his inventory. On landing the two of them saw the same Salamander player working as the gate guard, but they ignored him and walked straight through without even looking at him

"Any ideas where to start?" Cadmus began, holding one eye closed to avoid looking into the afternoon sunlight flashing between the buildings.

"The info dealer?" Ruby suggested in a dry tone. Cadmus gave her a flat look, and wordlessly fell into step behind her as she led him into the city. The streets were almost deserted, because most of the players were out in the fields and mob zones doing quests and grinding for items and experience. Ruby and Cadmus were unbothered all the way to the conference building that held the NPC and player info dealers. It was the only building in the city was was still packed with players.

The building was sandstone like the others, but on the inside it had wooden walls, though not for the sake of looks. Notes, advertisements, and other things were pinned to nearly every surface available, and a few dozen info dealers had hushed conversations with those at the front of the lines. The other occupants of the room stayed completely silent, hoping to overhear the conversations and get a little information for free. Just like everyone else in the building, Cadmus and Ruby stepped into line and stayed silent. Within a couple of seconds everyone's eyes twitched to Cadmus as he started to tap his foot, the sound loud in the quiet building. He didn't notice however, and Ruby wilted under the staring gazes as Cadmus zoned out and kept making noise with his tapping.

Cadmus moved, catching everyone's attention again, and opened up the personal notes section of his menu. His hands came up, and he started typing on a non-existent keyboard, tiny characters appearing on the panel in front of him, too small for anyone else to read. He completely tuned out everything around him, to the point that Ruby needed to nudge him to remind him to move forward when the line shortened. He did, however, lean out of the way when the last person in front of them finished with the information broker and shoved his way past them while giving the pair of kids the evil eye. Cadmus rolled his eyes and closed the notes panel, stepping to the side and letting Ruby move past and get to the broker.

"I'm looking for information on who might have lost a martial arts scroll," Ruby spoke up confidently but quietly, feeling the many eyes on her back.

"Martial arts, hmm?" the NPC responded with a mysterious smirk. He was a salamander, but unlike the stereotype for his race he was thin and delicate, but in an almost sinister and sneaky way. "I do believe that you might be referring to one of the remnants of the many martial arts temples that used to dot the desert. The temple emblem would most likely be placed on the ends of the scroll when it's rolled up. I would visit the temple ruins and see if you can match your scroll to a temple." The NPC winked conspiratorially, "or you could pay a little extra?"

Ruby rolled her eyes and confirmed the trade request with the NPC, paying the extra fee and pulling the scroll out of her inventory. She let the NPC have a quick look, and then shoved it back into her personal hammerspace so the other players couldn't get their own chance to see it. The NPC actually acted with surprised at the sight of the shabby scroll, an act that was extremely unusual for the info broker's AI.

"Oh my, you've found quite a rare treat, that's the signature of the Conquering Dragon school," he told them, licking his lips as if he'd tasted something pleasant, "They used to be famous dragon-slayers several decades ago, but they were a little too good at it and ran out of work. I don't even know if there's any of the temple's students left. The temple itself is a few hours east of here, but there's nothing left there but crumbling stone and rotting silk."

"I see," Ruby pouted, sighing. "Thank you for your service," she told the NPC, making Cadmus' mouth twitch into an amused look. She rolled her eyes at him and left the building without saying anything about what they'd learned. Behind them, the NPC moved onto the next customer, addressing them with the same silky-sweet tenor that he used on them, but they were gone before the conversation had the time to start. Once outside, Ruby stopped in the shade under a balcony and turned to Cadmus.

"Well that was somewhat helpful?" she ventured.

"It's more than we knew before," Cadmus shrugged, "and if we don't have any other leads we can always go check out the temple itself. We're supposed to 'find who the scroll belongs to,' so I'm _guess_ we're supposed to find a student?" He made eye contact with Ruby while he voice his conjecture.

"I don't know," Ruby raised her hands cluelessly, "maybe? Probably? It could mean a collector that lost it or something."

"Good point…" Cadmus nodded in agreement. After a moment, when neither of them had anything more to add, he sighed. "Let's just go check out the temple," he suggested, and Ruby agreed. They made their way back towards the edge of the city where they could start flying, and Ruby was about to break the silence and start a conversation when the two of them turned a corner and came face-to-face with a player standing on a platform, shouting at anyone who came near.

Surrounding him were wanted posters, all of them with a name, a picture, and an explanation of the subject's semblance. Every single one of them was level 25 or higher.

"Don't fool yourselves," the player bellowed, "don't say 'I can't really be that far behind, can I?' don't say 'I can't be missing out on anything.'" He whipped his arms out wide. "This game is built on a system of limited resources, quests can only be completed once, and allowing such a small number of players to take all of the best equipment and the most exp will kill the rest of us." He pointed to the posters around him. "Not only are these… these _entitled_ and _selfish_ people limiting our power and ability to defend ourselves, but they're even attacking normal players for ' _stealing'_ the quests and rewards they believe themselves _best suited to receive._ " He spat the last couple of words with so much venom that it made the small audience that was in the street flinch. "If you don't believe me," he laughed bitterly, "ask me about any one of these faces and I'll tell you the names of the players they wronged, and how many of us were forced into becoming Orange Players and losing what little opportunity they could've had the chance to find."

"Orange players just get watched by the town guard and have to pay tolls to enter cities, what do you mean?" a player countered as Cadmus passed him, not giving the conversation a glance.

"That's because being an orange player is so much worse than just paying a toll," the zealot crossed his arms and explained. "When you're an orange player you can only be offered and can only accept quests from your guild, and you're barred from shops in cities. You're cut off from the majority of experience, gold, and other essential items available in the game. You might as well be jailed, you'll be making the same amount of progress through the game, and at least in jail you get free food." Ruby looked sadly at the wanted posters, hesitating in her walk, and cursed softly under her breath when she realized that Cadmus had unknowingly left her behind. She scurried after him, kicking up a little bit of dust from the desert road. The zealot's eyes glanced to them, before returning to his preaching.

Ruby caught up to Cadmus as he walked into an road intersection that had a bright red wooden scaffold marking it where it could be easily seen from the air. When he got there, he turned around and saw Ruby behind him, and so he didn't notice her earlier hesitance. Ruby nodded at him to show that she was ready to go, and together they lifted off the ground, flying away from the sun, which was slowly making its way towards the western horizon. Within a matter of seconds the town cut out from under them, again being replaced by the barren desert and plains dominating the landscape. Ruby was just getting bored when a text chatbox opened in front of her as she was flying, briefly making her jump.

 _So what kind of shows do you watch?_

She read the message, and thought about the answer for a moment. Then, she mentally typed a reply.

 _The only show I liked was White Knight._

A few seconds later, Cadmus continued the conversation.

 _White Knight? Isn't that the show about an Atlesian inventor who invents a giant mecha and fights giant Grimm in excessively dramatic battle scenes?_

Ruby's face turned as red as the ends of her hair. She mentally sputtered, feeling embarrassed for watching such a "nerdy" show, but because she hesitated before responding Cadmus sent another message.

 _That's the only cartoon I thought was worth watching, everything else was way too happy-day sunshine-mode for my tastes. Giant mecha for the win._

Ruby blinked, the embarrassed look slowly falling from her face.

 _You liked White Knight?_

Ruby could just barely hear Cadmus quietly snort in amusement over the sound of the wind in her face.

 _My favorite fight was against Izhar the Ravager._

She broke out into a blinding grin at finding someone else her age who liked the show for the first time.

 _Mine was the one against Ziz._

 _Lol, you just chose the last one because it has the best CGI._

 _NO! It's the biggest fight where the White Knight's limiters get removed and you get to see it's real power!_

 _Alright, alright, okay. What's your favorite character then? And don't choose the mecha, it doesn't count._

 _Ha. Ha. I dunno…_

XXXXXXX

They were startled out of their conversation by a pair of fireballs trailing tar-like smoke sailing past their faces. Reflexes rapidly developed over the previous few weeks had them scrambling out of the way. Ruby's speed doubled in the blink of an eye, and she split off from Cadmus, eyes searching for the source. Cadmus equipped his sword into his hand in a shimmer of silvery light, and reversed his direction.

Ruby caught sight of the monsters attacking them, a small pack of Stymphalian Birds. Five birds were approaching from beneath them, metal feathers shimmering with heat from the flames that formed feathery crests along their neck. They were flying upward from a nest made on one of the sheer cliffs several hundred feet below them. Desert mountains chained as far as they could see, only separated by dune-filled valleys lined by eroded-smooth slants and towering cliffs, and the sound of the birds cawing their battle cries echoed hauntingly as it bounced off the many rock formations around them.

Ruby retaliated by pulling her polearm from her inventory and charging at the birds, accelerating into a brutal dive that propelled her into colliding head-on with the lead bird polearm-first. Cadmus followed as quickly as he could in her wake, catching the birds unawares as their eyes followed the red girl that impaled their leader. Unlike Ruby, he didn't have the sheer physical power from her high-speed dive to let him kill the birds with a single strike, but he made up for it by running his hand along his sword blade and priming it with poison, lifting the already debilitating slashes to their shoulders into a much more deadly form of wound. The poison quickly attacked the tendons and muscles controlling their wings, and without them the birds stalled in the air, and began to fall. Ruby ripped her polearm from her first victim, turned and saw the four others falling towards her. She tightened her grip and swung her blade, releasing a thin crescent wave of flame that impacted the plunging birds. The poison in their veins paired with the war between explosive flame and gravity proved too much for them, and the birds all weakened and shattered into dissolving shards of color.

Ruby and Cadmus stayed on guard for a moment, breathing heavily from the sudden sprint of effort, before cautiously relaxing.

"I thought we were too high to draw aggro," Cadmus frowned.

"Different place, different monsters, I guess," Ruby shrugged. Cadmus huffed in amusement at the simple-but legitimate-logic. They wordlessly looked over the reward tables.

"The exp is pretty good actually, we'll have to see what the spawn rate is like," Cadmus commented. He waited for Ruby to respond, but looked over when he heard the crystalline ring that signified a change in a player's equipment. He glanced over, and saw that she had a trio of bronzed feathers sticking out of a brand new headband.

"Dex boost two," she informed him smugly, admiring her reflection in the game menu's mirror function. Cadmus stared for a second, and then sighed.

"I swear, you're opening every loot chest from now on, your luck isn't fair," he complained with a grudging smile.

"I'd get first pick of everything then," she pointed out, adjusting the angle that the feathers stuck out from behind her left ear.

"It might be worth it," Cadmus grumbled dramatically, making Ruby roll her eyes and smirk.

They were pulled from their conversation by the sound of approaching fireballs. Their eyes snapped to below them, and they saw five new stymphalian birds charging upwards at them, firing the burning tar fireballs at them from their metal beaks. With their weapons already in hand, they were more than ready to take on the new wave of birds.

They handled the next wave of seven with equal ease, but began to struggle with the nine birds that appeared after.

Three hours later an exhausted imp and salamander crossed into a bazaar-like camp in the evening shade of a massive ruin of a sandstone temple.


End file.
